The telecom
ministry has questioned the jurisdiction of telecom tribunal TDSAT on
entertaining the petitions of five telecom operators, including Bharti
Airtel and Vodafone, challenging the govt's directive to stop 3G roaming
agreements.
Additional
Solicitor General A S Chandiok appearing for the Department of Telecom
(DoT) on Tuesday told the tribunal that it has no jurisdiction to
entertain the petitions which are altering the terms of telecom licence.
Terming
the inter-cirle roaming pacts among telecom service providers for 3G
services in areas where they do not have the designated spectrum as
"illegal", the government had issued notices to five players to stop
such services immediately.
The operators -- Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, Tatas and Aircel -- had challenged the government's decision in the TDSAT.
The
ASG said that in its recent judgement the Supreme Court has said that
the tribunal cannot entertain the petition which are altering the
licence conditions.
On
this the tribunal asked the government to file a separate application
in this regard. The ASG said, "It would be filed today only."
Further,
the tribunal asked the operators to file replies of the new coming
application questioning its jurisdiction by Friday this week and
directed to list the matter on Monday (January 9) for next hearing.
Meanwhile, state-owned BSNL on Tuesday requested to implead into this ongoing dispute and make it a party in the suite.
Additional
Solicitor General AS Tankha appearing for BSNL submitted that that PSU
is going to be affected very largely by the outcome of its hearing and
it should be heard.
He also submitted that an application in this regard would be filed Tuesday only.
On
this, the TDSAT Chairman Justice S B Sinha said it should be decided
only after deciding on the preliminary objections raised by the DoT.
During the proceedings Chandiok submitted that operators have still not complied with the interim order of TDSAT 24th December, directing them to handover the copies of their 3G roaming agreements.
The operators said that they were asked to handover their agreements only to the tribunal and not to the DoT.
Operators said that they have already submitted their agreements in a seal cover before the tribunal.
However, the tribunal said that such agreements submitted by the operators can be inspected by DoT through its counsel.
On
Monday, in a strong rebuttal to telecom operators on the issue of 3G
roaming, the government had alleged that service providers have not come
with clean hands and that they have suppressed material documents
before telecom tribunal TDSAT.
Filing
an affidavit before the TDSAT, the Department of Telecom (DoT) had
requested the tribunal to dismiss the petition of telecom operators
challenging the government directive to stop 3G roaming immediately.
DoT had on 23rd
December 2011, issued notices to telecom companies saying their 3G
roaming pacts were illegal and should be stopped immediately within 24
hours.
Operators
-- Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel and Tatas -- challenged DoT's
decision before the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal
(TDSAT) on the same day.
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